I think this came up before but I would be curious about both librarian &
distributor reaction to the following
We were contacted by a small college with whom we had not previously done
any business. I don't know if the person who called was a librarian or a
dept administrator but she asked if we would sign up with the state's new
E billing system. I was not enthused and had no idea what she even wanted to
order but per her request on went up. The beginning was slow but fairly
straightforward. Kino takes credit cards and checks and we CAN do bank
transactions but it is VERY difficult and we mainly do it for overseas
billings. Anyway I filled in the info and got to the kicker.
The system would bill us 1.75% service for everything they ordered
This bill would come AFTER we were paid. This is absurd for us for a lot of
reasons. First we pay royalties on most every title we sell and depending on
the the structure of the contract we may pay 50% which means if someone
billed us 1.75% it could really take 3.5% out from us as we would have paid
royalty on the full original amount. My guess we already pay up to 5% for
CC transactions. The set up is beyond silly. Library A orders $100 worth of
DVDs and then sends us a bill for $1.75 ? Which we then have to cut a check
for.

I think more than anything I was bothered about the principle. In order to
make the state's bill paying far more streamlined and efficient WE GET
CHARGED. Kind of like using some other banks ATM.

I have also heard of state's asking companies to pay "registration" fees
etc.

Luckily very little of our income is in fact directly from government
entities so I can afford to say no even if it costs us some direct business

VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.